A Zivilized World
by KrazyAnimefan
Summary: The FBI jet crashed short after the beginning of the apocalypse. What if Spencer Reid survived and meets Daryl Dixon in the course of his struggle to survive? Two characters who are pretty much the same but so different at all help each other? [This story is not set in the proper TV series plot, because that would be nearly impossible, sorry ;'D Daryl travels alone, like Reid.]
1. Saving the Agent

Spencer was running how fast he was able to, with a wound in his knee, caused by the incident of the crashing FBI jet. It was over two years ago, but his patella never healed properly because he was always on bis trip to wherever he did not know.  
And often his patella made it difficult for him to escape from those infected people, like right at this moment when they were after him and Reid was running, searching for a secure way out. But he struggled intensely and faltered, falling from a root that passed through the surface of the forest's ground.  
He heard the murmurs and howls of the Infected and rolled over, coughing by the instant pain in his knee, the Colt revolver heavy in his hands.

 **Bang- bang, bang- bang- bang, bang, bang.**

Four of the five Infected lay on rotten and bloody leafs and earth. Spencer tried to shoot another time, but only a small 'click'-sound could never kill one of them. What killed the last thing standing was an arrow, shot in a steep ankle from somewhere between the leafs above.  
Reid leaped up and spinned around, while a shadow jumped off the tree's crown and landed in front of him. Out of a common reflex the young man pulled up his Colt, staring at the dirty man in front of him who held a crossbow. Was he smirking? A strand of Spencer's brown waves slided into his sight and he shook his head towards the opposite direction so that he could observe every move the foreigner made.  
Slowly he pushed up a hand as if he wanted to show he was not dangerous and it worked -Spencer loosened the grip on his worthless Colt, but he was still tensed, felt a little fear of this man, this dirty, of course very skilled archer with suspicious dark eyes which were part-time hidden under his messy brown hair and on which Spencer got a rather long and intense glimpse.  
Then the foreigner spoke in a rough tone and a deep crumbling voice: "You bleed, kid. Your knee is sore and needs some rest." The calm manner in which the man spoke had Spencer thinking he wouldn't harm the agent, but he was not sure, he couldn't be sure, never, since Tobias Hankel. He lowered his Colt and took a slight breath, his knee shivering. It was hard to stand when the adrenalin started to undergo degradation. "See, you don't need that Colt.." alarmed Spencer held up the weapon again, although he had no munition left.  
"It's useless, huh?" The man bypassed the distance and dragged the arrow out of the Infected's forehead. Spencer stood and stared the whole time it took the other man doing that, and out of a sudden his stomach growled -he hadn't eaten for days. The man turned around and looked at Spencer, taking out a small bag and giving it to Spencer. As he did not will to grab it, the man grumbled: "If you don't eat it I will. My name is Daryl."  
Did he think telling Spencer his name would change anything? He already thought of him as a human, so he did with the Infected. Hesitating Reid grabbed the bag some moments later, opened it to find a hare he probably had hunted few hours ago.

"It's yours, I can't take it from you."  
"I offered it to you."  
"Still it is yours.", came the weak protest from the young agent. Silently the man called Daryl growled, but didn't take it and made his way through a bush to go the way Spence took when he flew from the Infected. An impulse of anger and fear ran through Spencer fingertips, but he could just glare at Daryl walking away.  
"I'm Spence!", he declared fastly, his voice tremulous. Daryl freezed, and turned around. "Spencer.", Reid corrected with a low voice, and Daryl nodded. Spencer was not good at something like this, making friends without awkward situations. For Spencer, this situation was awkward. A man he didn't know and who wanted to help him. Daryl came back and sat down on a tree trunk, kicked the head of one of the Infected lying around. "The hare won't cook himself.", Daryl murmured and Spencer bend his brow. "I don't know how to light a fire."  
Spencer had known, that he had no skills, whether in surviving or in fighting these people. For him they were people, like Daryl was, no Undeads or animals. Spencer sighed. _Three doctorates and nearly three bachelor's degrees, but still I am a nitwit and absolutely useless in an apocalypse._ Rossi or Emily, either Hotch or JJ would have been a better choice to survive the plane crash, and Derek had sacrificed himself for Reid when a dozen of them took notice of the two SSAs. Spencer thought of the small whistle Derek Morgan had given to him when he failed his shooting exams -seemed that he didn't change much, he had wasted munition for the Infected, seven shots for four.  
His fist closed around the bag and after he recognized it he let go of the bag and it fell on the ground. Daryl growled a bit louder and pulled it towards him, then searched for a few dry branches in the surrounding place, while Spencer watched him. Then Daryl pulled out a Zippo and lightened a fire. It was not what Spencer expected, but it was a fire and it helped Spencer to warm up a bit. He hunched up and lay his chin onto his one knee and regarded the other one. His trousers were soaked in blood and cut up, he could see the wound. Daryl was right, the wound was sore, maybe his patella was destroyed, but ever since he tried to ignore the striking pain. The only thing that mattered was surviving.  
He sighed and reached it with the fingers of one of his hands. It hurt when he touched the nearly gaping wound and so he made a face and sniffed for a moment. Daryl smirked and Spencer raised his sight, wondering. What was it? But he kept quiet, and didn't ask, made his thinking face and lowered his eyes again to watch the red flesh. The fire caressed his forehead with a warm breeze and he closed his eyes.

"You remind me of someone I knew.", Daryl broke the silence after minutes of hush and staring into the flames. "I don't understand.", Spencer looked at Daryl, who also took a look at the young man. "You didn't ask for my help and didn't thank me, that I understand, but you have to take it. Don't refuse it." Spencer didn't react but looked down on his knee again which was itching. "It hurts, I need to see a doctor. But there are no doctors and you aren't one either.", his voice trembled again a little bit caused by pain. "You are just the survivor type of man." One of Daryl's eyebrows lifted and he stood up, went to one of the trees with a knife. Spencer watched how he cut off the bark and died the knife in the resin that came out. Then he returned to Spencer and knelt down in front of him. He shied back and hold his hand above his knee, but Daryl grabbed hold of this cold hand of his and said soothingly: "The resin will sterilize the wound, but what you need is rest, I know without being a medical bachelor and you know too. As long as I am here you don't need to run away until I say so." Spencer nodded and Daryl began to treat the wound. The resin felt as if it burned itself into flesh and bone, but Spencer forced himself to stay as calm as he could, biting his lip. Daryl used the lower part of the destroyed trousers to make a bandage, but it might have not worked out that well. Still Spencer didn't want to fight and didn't complain.


	2. A Question a Day keeps Spencer Away

After a delicious -M _ore precisely the most delicious since the outburst..._ , Spencer thought- and silent meal Reid curled, weighted down with weariness. But the noises of the night that was besieging the little fire besides Spencer kept him in their grip, letting him stay wide awake. Not only owls, cracking scrubs and the chirping of crickets, but also the terrible moans of the Infected forced him to forget sleep or either rest and had him anxious in the dark, one of the things he feared the most besides Infected and losing hold. He stared into the little flames, the embers, although his eyes hurt after a short time.  
"Daryl?", he asked smoothly into the unknown. A face appeared in the sparkle of the fire, Daryl's face. "I can't sleep.", Spencer mumbled, "Can I ask you something?" Again that suspicious look he had seen the afternoon in the redneck's eyes. "One question, but you may not get an answer..." Spencer sat up and responded: "No answer could also be an answer.", Daryl nodded in his direction, so Spencer continued: "Why do you insist on helping me?" There had to be any reason. Besides, killing him would also have been a bad option, he only had the Colt and nothing else than his clothes, to rob him wouldn't be profitable. But having Reid alive was a bad choice neither because of his injury and his impossibility of surviving without half-way dying.  
"As I've said, you remind me of someone I knew." Spence took another guess: "It's you before all this happened, isn't it?" Daryl shook his head as if he didn't want to think of it and Spencer jumped at conclusion that he was right, he was able to gaze through the permanent pokerface. "I said one question." It was Reid who smirked this time, and smiled for the first second in that current state. "And still no answer is an answer too." This showed to him that he was still good for something -it just wasn't some video game sort of apocalyptic experience. He laid down again and closed his eyes, trying to overhear the things that awaited in the darkness.

The next morning Daryl was already preparing for the departure as Spencer woke up and rose. He rubbed his temples for a second and groaned sleepily. "Spencer, get up.", Daryl grinned, and then looked back over his shoulder because a Walker tottered towards them. It made Spencer cringe, but Daryl bewared a cool mind and loaded his crossbow to shoot an arrow into the Walker's eye. "I ain't got all day.", he pulled out the arrow and cleaned it with a farn, then turned to see Spencer stand up, his weight only on one side of his body to unload his knee. He hobbled towards the redneck who would like to lend him a hand but didn't do it by now. "How is it?" Spence looked up from the ground and explained: "Seems better, but my knee is numb. And it still hurts when I put weight onto it." Daryl nodded.

He led Spencer to a small hut. It was surrounded by a rough-and-ready fence to defend Walkers and it seemed as if Daryl would live there, but he just took a motorcycle out of the garage, mounted and slided it in the direction of Reid, who was wide-eyed. Then he twigged and leaped onto the motorcycle, sitting down carefully behind Daryl and searching for grip. Finally he pulled his arms around Daryl's chest and leaned on to prevent himself falling off the Honda Nighthawk-based bike.

Spencer began to ask a question every day, sometimes two, but Daryl was sure the boy never learned from his answers, but nevertheless Reid began to understand Daryl, his pokerface, his shell, he could speculate about the reasons. But also Daryl recognised a few things; for example Spencer often looked at a small cat-call he wore around his neck. He must know it would only draw Walkers in their direction if he blew the whistle, so it had to be an emotional connection to something.

Once they sat around another fireplace, Spencer began to ask another question, it was in the morning hours: "Did your parents abuse you?" A question so direct surprised Daryl, and he played with the possibility of staying silent, but he raised his voice: "My mother died in a fire accident when I was little. My father hit my older brother and me." _Enough for an answer_..., thought Spencer, he had a bad feeling seeing the hunter in front of the fire so bland. "My mother has... had paranoid shizophrenia. My father therefore abandoned us. She never could help me when older students bullied. One day they undressed and tied me to a soccer goal. When I freed myself and ran home my mother was having an episode. I know it's not like child abuse but both our fathers weren't good ones..." A sigh, then both of them hushed for a while, deeply thinking of what they lost. They both were somehow sorry for the other, but they didn't show it.

Once again when Spencer got a bit sleepy Daryl broke the silence again and asked: "What's with the whistle you often hold?" It was the first time Daryl showed openly interest in Spencer who lifted his head and took out the whistle. "It was my best friend's one. He gave it to me first when I worked for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit and failed my shooting exams. Later I succeeded and gave it back to him. When our jet crashed we were the only ones to survive and we did, over more than a year, but then the circumstances changed; he sacrificed himself for my sake. I took it to have something that reminds me of him, although I will never forget how he looked like after the infection." Spencer looked down, unintended at his knee. Still they needed medication but it looked better than a week ago. Daryl didn't know what to say, so he said nothing, staring into the flames. Spencer stared in the same direction, then started to contemplate Daryl. He had no feeling of getting close to Daryl, never ever. But still he felt a slight shadow of a link between the two. _Maybe because I depend on him..._ , Spencer admitted silently to himself.

As the sun rose from the horizon they began to pack and went on, using the motorcycle. Normally they didn't travel on bigger roads, but they needed fuel, so they tried to get across masses of cars just standing there -and a few Walkers.

The town they explored was partly destroyed, burned down buildings or just run-down ruins. Only a few houses were unharmed and Daryl started to search for a gas station as Spencer's attention was drawn by a pharmacy. "Daryl.", he looked back over his shoulder to follow Reid's gaze. Then he gave to him a knife, Spencer took it and they went separate ways.

The drugstore was nearly empty, but Spencer searched carefully for what he needed: a painkiller. Or even antibiotics, but he wasn't that keen to think there was anything left. But he found a small package with 500mg pills, 2-(p-isobutyl-phenyl-)propionic acid -short: ibuprofen- as active agent. He found a First Aid set too and wanted to get back to Daryl when he suddenly stopped at the door, went back to the rooms behind the actual store and searched for a name onto the endless number of drawers


	3. Try a Little Tenderness

**Writer's note:** Thank you for the favs/follows/reviews, I cheer every time I get a message with one of your actions that tell me to move further and write more chapters! For those of you who follow my story -please tell me if I do it right, if Daryl and Spence are like in the series and if you like the plot -or if you don't like. All I need is a hint ;) I don't own the characters, so I want to do it as similar as possible to their actual appearances in their series! I would be pleased if you'd speak to me *-*

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Spencer felt a tension in his neck as he crossed the fissured street, looking out for Daryl. The redneck had already returned to his motorcycle and filled in a canister of fuel while he glared at Spencer. He must have felt his uneasiness but as always Daryl did not seem to pay much attention to it. For Reid it was his old manner of keeping it dead quiet and forcing it to disappear by pretending it never existed -reverse psychology.  
"A First Aid-kit, a painkiller. More than expected.", Spencer smiled slightly, unpacking one of the pills and swallowing it in one dry gulp. Daryl's glare rested on Spencer's lips for a moment, then he nodded, opened one of the saddle bags for his companion to put the medicine in. Then they both mounted and Daryl rode the motorcycle down the road. The fissured road not only of the town but also of their companionship.

Days over days they two survived, searching for a safe place. Finally Daryl decided to give their journey a halt -although they only went by foot when they searched for a good place for a fire in the evenings, Reids patella healed poorly. The barn he found was big, and as far as they knew free of Walkers. While Spencer rested, Daryl collected stones and branches to build a fireplace. The barn was filled with hay, so they could use it for the fire and for something else: "Spence, did you ever sleep on a hay bed?"

Later that night Spencer startled because he thought he heard an Infected's moan. He listened for a confirmation of his apprehension, fraught. The darkness behind the ambers of their fire was as restless as Reid's thought that began to fly at the speed of light. There it was again. His hands searched blindly for Daryl sleeping right besides him, but he wasn't there. _It has to be a very bad dream_ , concluded Spencer, _I won't die in the real barn if I die here._ But as his hand grazed the sharp edge of the knife Daryl gave to him earlier, the pain in his fingertips was shockingly real. He didn't grab the knife but constantly looked at the Infected tottering nearer and nearer. _It is a child_ , was Spencer's only thought, _I can't murder a child!_ So he didn't. He didn't do anything while the infected kid came nearer and nearer so that Reid could see its face clearly. It reached its hands at Spencer and he got the idea that it just wanted to give him a hug. He did not have the idea of even running away, of fleeing backwards from the Infected. He just stared at those eyes, the rotten face.  
For a moment time stood still but then, out of the darkness, Daryl jacknifed and pushed a dagger from above into the child's head. Even when the body lay down on the ground lifelessly Spencer freezed, looking kind of sulky at the kid. "I'm NOT saying sorry for that.", growled Daryl, he was pissed off, "Better say sorry for not thanking me, because I did what you obviously can't: I saved your life!" Spencer lifted his head, a bit angry: "I'm not an infant you have to save. I can take care of myself on my own. I'm just no murderer!" Daryl made a face, declared that it was no murder because Walkers weren't people. Spencer jumped to his feet and protested: "It's wrong!" He obviously was out of arguments, not only because a discussion was not possible, not with Daryl. Not even Derek would have been able to defeat Daryl in any way. Daryl only showed Spencer how useless he was, and how indignant he should be at the fact that he was the only surviving BAU agent. He who was not at all the survivor type of man. His patella ached, and he broke the silence once again. "I need rest." it was cold, but not so cold that his body would feel more numb than his head. He leaned back, curled up and pretended he was asleep, but Daryl didn't want to say anything more either. Spencer was helpless, so all he wanted was to help him. But how could you help someone who refused your offer since you met? It was not like Spencer didn't eat or sleep when Daryl had food and a fireplace, but his general attitude didn't change much, no matter how far he got in trouble. For him Walkers were humans infected by an illness which he assumed was not terminal although it clearly was, Walkers were nothing else than dead bodies shuffling around. Daryl cooked the squirrel he had hunted, sighed and stared into the fire, from time to time looking at Spencer's back.

By the time the meal was ready Daryl tried to wake up Spencer, but he was sleeping so calm that the redneck let him sleep. Out of a tiny little thought he pulled up his right hand and touched the brown strands of Spencer's wavy hair. It had been at a length of maybe his ears when their journey started but now it was nearly chin-long. Daryl recoiled as a dreamy smile appeared on Spencer's face, but instead of waking up he just murmured something incomprehensible and Daryl sighed. He had to smile too, because he began to prefer Spencer's sleeping face over his thinking face. "I wish you as beautiful dreams as you are..."

When Spencer woke up rather refreshed he looked around to find Daryl sleeping on the ground in front of the burnt down fire. He stood up, hobbled over and knelt down to wake him up. He felt sorry for what happened yesterday evening, but he would never openly confess that Daryl was right, that he would never be able to save any of the Infected because they were already dead. He wanted to hope. But with Daryl asleep there was a way to tell him without his actual attention. Spencer sighed, whispered: "I'm sorry, I'm such a coward... And I am behaving like a child, too. I'm supposed to thank you, you are right. But still I won't stop believing that there must be a cure. It's the only thing I will ever be able to do for humanity's sake." He stood up, again sighing. He felt like a failure again.

As he heard Daryl approaching, he turned away intimidated, but the redneck forced him to look at him with his fingers on the younger's chin, holding it firmly. "Not only do you have a beautiful face, Dr. Reid, but you have a beautiful heart...", Daryl sighed, Spencer blushed. "Let go of me.", he whispered, gripping Daryl's hand with his own. Daryl did what Spencer said, but Spencer searched for blame to no avail.

They stayed in the barn for more than two weeks. Whenever Daryl was on the hunt, Spencer visited the hayloft. The first days it had been hard for him to climb up the ladder to it and it hurt, but after an injection he soon didn't even feel the pain anymore. He didn't feel any pain.

One day the barn door opened and Daryl called for Spencer, who lay on the hay, staring soulless at the ceiling. As he heard the redneck calling, Spencer leaped up far too quickly and therefore backed on the balustrade. "My head is a mess..", grumbled Spencer maybe a bit too loud, so that Daryl could hear it. "Your hair too.", he grinned, "wait, I'm coming up." Spencer shook is head, "Y-you don't have to, I'll get back down in a few moments!" Stop panicking!, thought Spencer, but his head really was a mess, the thoughts ran through his fingers like sand -or even water or simply air. As far as possible he stood on two feet, trying to look stable, but he really was unstable.  
He couldn't stop Daryl from climbing up like he did every single day before and so the survivor detected the narcotics, grabbed Spencer and pulled his arm so that he had to elongate it. With that Daryl had a good view of the injection marks. A few moments both of them hushed and Spencer held his breath.  
"For how long have you been doing that?" Daryl sounded hurt. "Whenever you were hunting. I found them in the pharmacy...!" Spencer wasn't able to speak any further because Daryl shook him hard so that his head flew back and forward again. "Ouch..." Spencer murmured, recognizing the anger in Daryl's dark eyes. "This will stop now, immediately.", the redneck growled and let go of Spencer. "No, don't...!", howled Reid, as Daryl threw the narcotics down on the floor in order to destroy them. But one gaze of Daryl's eyes made him stop in fear of the barely concealed rage coming to an outburst. Spencer really was afraid for the moment. But after he was done Daryl ignored Reid climbed down again and sat down besides the fireplace.  
 _I'm such a burden..._ Spencer wrapped his arms around his rib cage, closing his eyes with a rather desperate expression on his face.


End file.
